The October 11 monthly program of SWNM Audubon will feature a presentation by Dr.  Noah Comet titled “A Cultural History of Hummingbirds.” The program begins at 7 PM in Harlan Hall, room 219, on the WNMU campus at 12th and Alabama. It is free and open to the public.

Hummingbirds demand superlatives. Exceptionally tiny when at rest—the slightest species measuring just 2¼ inches—they are nevertheless unmissable in flight, clothed in sun-catching grandeur. Like dwarf stars of compressed energy, their nectar-fueled hearts prime them for bursts of 80 wingbeats a second, and for annual round-trip migrations of up to 5,400 miles: to cover a proportionate distance, a human would have to run nine marathons every day for a year. They are the only birds that can fly backward, an advantageous skill as they dart and hover and defend their territories ferociously. They sleep ferociously too, each night submitting to a torpor that can bring them to the edge of hypothermia. These birds may be small, but there is nothing small about them.

Their abundant fascinations have earned hummingbirds a prominent if under-examined place in cultural history, and that is the subject of Noah Comet’s presentation. Comet, by reaching back to pre-Colombian America (particularly to the Aztec’s chief god, Huītzilōpōchtli, who was named for and often figured as a hummingbird), will explain how the bird evolved from this bloodthirsty deity into a transatlantic metaphor and commodity. Hummingbirds’ bright plumage eventually inspired British Romantic poetry and adorned French milliners’ shops as tokens of New World exoticism and trophies of imperialism. The birds also came to symbolize freedom within the anti-slavery abolitionist movement of the nineteenth century. Comet will trace these ideas and further explore the modern, pop-cultural gendering of the hummingbird, which is nowadays often regarded as feminine, at odds with its ancient warrior ideal.

Noah Comet holds graduate degrees from NYU and UCLA, and is a professor of English at the United States Naval Academy.  He is widely published in the field of nineteenth-century British studies, his credits including a 2013 book from Macmillan Press and many essays in scholarly journals.  He is also a certified State of Maryland Master Naturalist, an avid outdoorsman, and a nature writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, theDenver Post, and theBaltimore Sun. A native of northeastern Ohio, he traces his love of birds to (among other things) a surprise encounter with a Barred Owl in Cleveland, who landed on a branch, just inches from his head, and shared several minutes with him in silent, mutual curiosity. Since then, Comet has made it one of his life goals to see all of America’s owl species; he’s more than halfway there. He lives in Annapolis with his wife and 7-year-old son.

Light refreshments follow. For additional information, send an email to swnmaudubon@gmail.com.